Ships & Modules

Read it to yourself in an Arnie voice and it makes sense.

What he's saying is this.

CCP has made Gallente a ****** race. It has the dumbest mix of weapons (close range), speed (lol, armour), armour tanking (lol, speed?), EWAR (damps, which suck), slow-to-apply DPS (drones, you run away...)...and the only reason anyone plays Gallente toons or trains Gallente skills is...well, he doesn't elaborate. But let me.

Gank boats - eg, neutron cats. Used for hisec suicide ganking.
Capitals - the Moros, Thanny and the Nyx rule the roost for capital DPS.
The Talos (blaster) - awesomesauce for pirates brawling in belts
Arazu and Lachesis - would be **** on a bull without the point range
Proteus - its a T3, its stupidly OP in its own way
Domi - best AFK bash ship ever now you have DDA's!

And that's it. There's a few adepts who like flying other Gallente boats, but as Scultz says, it is only with ridiculous automagical Hand of God / Deus Ex Machina OGB Alts that these have any niche at all. Which is only because said ridiculous game mechanics turn a sluggish EFT-warrior's wet dream wrapped in a turdy package into a superfast killdozer. Remove the OGB fairydust element and Gallente suck ass, and the Deimos sucks ass.

But that's not saying much, as so does the Sac. The Zealot hangs on only because of Scorch and Guardians. Ishtars are good for exploration, but you never see nanotar sentry snipers anymore because golly me, everyone's going 2km/s and the Istard isn't and the drones can't track a skirmish-boosted titan anymore.

So, that's about it for Gallente. Oh. And half the time I was actually talking about Vindicators and Vigilant. Thoraxes? Ahahahaha!

Still works though, sometimes it works better because people think you are slow and shtty, and then they cross the 30 km mark and get a light slap. Makes good antisupport because it can actually track things the talos can't.

This. ;)

Gallente is my second favorite race, namely for ship concept and design, along with my love of drones. Been playing off and on since 2004, and keeping faith.. Now that a Dev has actually admitted publicly that they plan on working on armor tanking and drones... I find myself getting excited, even though it may mean I'll be another 3 years older before I actually see said changes, lol.

Actually, one black swan of the Gallente lineup that has really, really benefitted incredibly via various indirect buffs is the Sin.

IIt got a massive hand from the Hybrid Buff - allowing 250mm rails to be fit with a tank and cloak and BLOPs portal. Which was aight, it wasn't anything spectacular but it became more than a triage BLOPs or a cargo BLOPs.

Then the fools at CCP made DDA's. Suddenly, you could fill the Sin's lowslots with outrageous amounts of win, and you can now get a T2-fit Sin cranking 850 DPS - which is on par with faction-fitted Redeemers.

The reason you don't see this much is because, well, its a BLOPs ship. But overall, at least this hull has benefitted from indirect tweaking and now even I will look at flying one.

Oh you haters

Well Sister is here to give you an assessment of all the races, because let's face it they are all terrible and people would be better of playing World of Tanks.


AMARR

CCP made Amarr the loser race from the very beginning. Locked in to two damage types, their ridiculous weapons use so much cap, that basically all their ships have one bonus wasted to be actually able to use the lazors in the first place. Nobody would choose this race, unless they dreamt of firing colourful lazor beams as a kid. If you thought Gallente was slow, well here comes Amarr




ok Amarr is slowly making it's way in this direction, we have time for a commercial break, introduce their hilarious lineup, buy some ammo and do PI before they get to warp.


Baiting- everybody loves flying the bait maller, because sitting alone on undock and then docking alone after an hour of watching youtube is more fun than pvp
Pilgrim- if you manage to find a person who didn't fit any cap warfare and doesn't know how to shoot drones, you can get a kill
Oracle- good option for structure bashing in C1 wormholes, if your primary criteria is the ability to be AFK
Legion- a great OGB, and the only decent alternative to T3 fleets for pilots who can't fly a Proteus
Caps- Archon is actually awesome, and Revelation is an ok substitute if you didn't train for a Moros


CALDARI

CCP made a marketing study, and it revealed that many simple people also want to fly internet spaceships. CCP found a group of these people and introduced them to EVE, but immediately ran into serious problems- test subject's eyes glazed, they started sweating and some got enraged, throwing keyboards across the room when they were talked about combat mechanics- tracking, transversal, damage types made one subject faint. Just too much, brain hurrrts! So CCP made Caldari for this audience. All they have to do is copy the one working fit and choose cheap option, or egspanxive SHINY option, and press F1. Because they were in a hurry, they filled the rest of the lineup with random hull designs and firsts stats that came to mind.

PVE- Drake and Tengu are the top choices in NPC corps all across New Eden for SOLOING level 4s!
Falcon- this is the ship that everybody loves.

BONUS QUESTION: Did you know that also Caldari has caps? They in fact do! You can even search for their dreadnought called Phoenix from Evelopedia and other online databases, we couldn't find them on Tranquility for this presentation.


MINMATAR

You remember that annoying little kid from the kindergarten who always appeared from the bushes, made funny faces or threw little stones at you from a distance, and immediately ran away if you even looked at him? Well Minmatar is the spaceship race for these special kids. For them, not getting killed equals winning in PVP- which is pretty cool, after all if you've never won anything, not losing again does indeed feel awesome! There is one good reason to cross-train for Minmatar, though, the pirate faction ships.

Alpha- Tornados are really good for suicide ganks, and blobbing a gate with 78 friends and 192 Basis.
Exploiting ABSs- still over a week left to fly a Mael, Sleip or Cyclone!
Hauling- Prowler is the finest cloaky hauler in the universe, period.
Solo SB- Hound is great solo all-rounder if you still haven't made any friends to go bombing with.
Hurricane- this is still a decent BC for a week or so.


Yes, Minmatar also has caps


I hope this mini-review gives you the info required to make your race selection in EVE- fly bananas!

These comments are interesting, even if i don't agree with the conclusions, because they talk about different Gallente ships and how you (not-) use them. It's quite common belief, yet at the same time they represent quite the paradox.


HAC and SR-rush
Trinkets comments hint about the fact that maybe no HAC does particularily well ("as does the Sac /.../ the Zealot only because...") but how have the class actually been used the last few years and how have Gallente done? The fact of the matter is that the Gallente HAC have actually been used quite well occassionally, with some notable moments captured on film. The Deimos was used with success not only by Horn and Rote, but also by Agony, in slightly smaller setting by members of RnK's second founder-corp T-SW and in even smaller setting by Genos. The Ishtar is what started the AHAC trend, you would not have heard the acronym "AHAC" if it wasn't for the Ishtar - as it was used by CH and SoT.

What other racial line of HAC can parade such a track-record? It's probably only Amarr. Minmatar have been losing profile in the years leading up to the AHAC trend [2010]. When Crucible [2012] hit (with Alpha nados and Nano talos usurping the roles of Muninns and Vagas further) they had already long since fallen out of any illustration of notable success (ie., there's not been any really good Vaga movies for years). The Vaga had major issues adapting to the BC trends and the Muninn had been overtaken by Machariels as well as Maelstroms and Canes.

So while Trinket may label the Gallente options as "suck" or "slow" they have clearly fared way better than many other HAC with examples to draw from and references to point to. They have been used, by good groups with good effect. There's not that many ships in this game you can say that about.


Crucible and Drone-sniping
With Crucible's continued profileration of undertanked snipers with L-turrets i remember i pointed out in the very first months of this year that i predicted an upswing for the drone boats, or suggested people looked into it. It's pretty simple math: your typical LR BS-gun setups have 400 sig gun-resolution ontop of a limited buffer with a fairly sizable sig of their own that make them rely on accurate application of damage at range. It doesn't matter if you plate a larger ship up the wazoo or sig-tank a smaller ship, either way you will have a good advantage between an armor tank and the application of sentry damage against something like that. That is also what happened half a year later when Goon "boots" began to dance alongside PL "slowfox".

It works perfectly in theory, it worked perfectly among the medium sized groups when they spearheaded similar concepts right after Crucible and it has worked quite well for the two perhaps most prolific large groups in the game right now. It's surprising to me that it's not getting more mention. This is very real and effective use, backed by sources that can be validated and referenced. It's not hearsay, it's there in statistics and movies. We can't just sneer at that and call the ships or race bad without proof or counter-collaborating sources.


Short range and drops that are hot
The final interesting bit is wether the Vindi should be mentioned or not. To me, it's not just a question of the Vindi, it's a question of how you use any of the L-blaster boats. That too is a bit of a paradox. It puzzles me why we on one hand complain about hotdrops (their nature of successfully surprising people with well-composed SR setups) and on the other hand complain about the speed and range of Gallente BS. They are ideal for the typical hotdrop-gank. They obviously get good competition from the Abaddon with it's combination of both top performing bonus combinations and ammunition combinations. That makes it a ship you can never overlook.

However, next to that, almost every other premier option is Gallente and the tactical frame they are put in is so successful that it makes so many people complain about it, while the ships are ideal for it. The same examples keep reappearing again, the Vindi is obviously outstanding and it's web-bonus mesh quite well with other ships in similar concepts (ie., Moros [damage] + Vindi [tracking] + Proteus [point]), but good groups have used other such ships to effect as well. The Navy Mega do get used, and used quite frequently at such setting; in the role of bait and similarily to the Abaddon or Navpoc. The redundancy and Crucible-adaption the Navpoc provide can similarily be reproduced with both the standard Domi and it's navy variant. In fact, they have been used specificly like that as far back as the Winter of 2011, yet still here we are with threads that lament over the state of Gallente.

The Gallente ships in hotdrops makes sense in both theory and practise.

Answering why those concepts haven't profiled in statistics is another discussion, the point i'm trying to make here is that it certainly have nothing to do with their potential. The possible performance itself.

It's obviously more interesting looking at what someone have achieved with something than wallowing in why not more people do it.

I had a discussion with someone, I forget who, about 6 months ago on this same topic.

And the thing about drones, I feel, is primarily how unwieldy the UI is, and how long it takes drones to react.

Consider this. Any other boat (turret, missile), you press F1 and click on the enemy ship. That's it. The ship will lock onto it and commence firing on it. One keypress, one click. Done.

Now consider the same thing with drone boats. First you do the exact same thing as above - F1 and click. This will get your hybrids going, since all Gallente drone boats and hybrid/drone split weapon system. And let's remember, as a general rule, split weapon system is bad. Most popular ships in EVE (Drake, Tengu, etc.) do not have a split weapon system. Even Hurricane, also one of the most popular ones, doesn't have a split system per se - 8 highs and 6 turret slots results in 2 high slots being used for utility.

While your ship is locking, you gotta mouse over to the drone control panel and select the drone group you want to launch. That is, if you already opened the "drones in bay" tab. If you haven't, you gotta open that first, which is an extra click and another second wasted. Then you right-click on the flight you want to send out. Has to be done with a mouse, because apparently adding "launch drones" hotkey is too much hassle, though admittedly it'll be clunky too because how will it know which group to launch? So, you right-click the group you want, and go down the list until you get to launch drones, and left-click that. Viola, drones are out! But since the enemy is already shooting you, even aggressive drones will be all like "Uuuuh, d'oh, what are we supposed to be doing again? Giggity..." and possibly pick their nose. So you gotta send them to attack. Luckily, there's a hotkey for that, at least. So press F. "F" as in "****".

How many clicks is that in total? Let's see:
Left-click to open the "Drones in Bay" tab.
Right-click to open contextual menu.
Left-click launch drones.
Press F to send them to attack.
_________________________
Number of keypresses/clicks just to engage with drones:
4
That's on top of 2 keypresses/clicks to start the guns to fire.
Oh, and I almost forgot. If you want something fancy, like being able to see the HP of the drones you just launched? You had best click on "drones in space" tab and expand that. So add another click, for a grand total of 7!

So, to recap, non-drone-boat has to press 2 buttons to engage, a drone boat has to press 6 buttons to do the same thing! Not to mention it takes considerably longer because the UI reaction time and drone deployment is not exactly instant. Also they like to twirl around for a second or two while you're hammering that F key through the desk and cursing, before they finally decide to attack.

So, "drones" and "bad", including UI and AI and everything in between, seems to go hand in hand.

If or when that is fixed...well...we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I just wish we were in the army, so I could have whoever came up with this drone UI shot. Twice.

You are correct; drone sniper setups are definitely a good counter to sniper BC gangs (tier 3's). But that is rock-paper-scissors warfare, and since you can't recall your drones, it really works only if the sniper gang/blob hangs around or is compelled to fight within range of the sentries. Otherwise, you need to use Valks/Warriors and chase the snipers, which relies on MWDing after them (or letting the drones chase and hope they kill before the tier 3 warps). MWDing after a nano sniper BC is suicide.

Like I said, niche performance by adepts.

Then, of course the Hype and Mega do well as blaster boats in hotdrops or on wormhole fights, as does the Domi which can deploy 4 heavy neuts to wreck the cap of opponents. However, in w-space it is preferable to bring a Legion and if you can afford heavy stuff, Bhaalgorns, because you will either be fighting caps or T3 cruisers, and the ISK double-down is worth it, except in very small gangs where you are afraid of being counter-dropped by an unseen force. In this situation, the Vindi / Bhaal +/- Moros +/- Archon is the heavy element and the rest is armour Lokis, Proteii, Legions. Deimos get a look in because of the DPS, but the tank is excrable and thus, its only a choice of the poor or desperate as, realistically, a Proetus doesn't cost that much more and you get equal DPS and five times the buffer.

Off wormholes, the Domi is too slow and its neuts too short range to deal with modern OGB boosted gangs. It suffers from the same paucity of situation it is good as the Phoon or torp raven. Thus, if your sentries aren't going to cut the mustard, and you can't tank the enemy, you may as well flee or choose a different ship.

Hypes and Megas are a favourite of station games, but not since the ASB made the Mael into a ridiculous monster. Perhaps after Retribution we will see these boats regain their fame and pride of place. But again, niches.

In all this, the skill of the FC and the tactical advantage, if you let it fall into the lap of the Gallente pilot, will result in pwnage. If you get the drop on a Gallente ship and it can't escape or slingshot you, it dies because of lack of flexibility. If the trend is towards drones, then the Gallente need more ships with the Algos' abilities so that you cannot outrun the drone DPS in a pink fit.